All these tortures have for centuries been inflicted; they have been practiced upon thousands of animals, only for men, at this day, to doubt whether the cruelty has been attended with the slightest service. Flesh, as capable of feeling as our own, has been cut, irritated, burnt, and punched for hundreds of years; and now, at the twelfth hour, such operations are not discarded, but their efficacy is mildly questioned. Reader, if you have a horse which is lame from spavin, and your calculations tell you it will not pay to nurse the cripple, have it slaughtered. Do not consent to have it tortured for a chance; do not sell it to the certainty of a terrible old age and of immediate torment. The cure for spavin is good food and rest--perfect rest: such rest or stagnation as a healthy horse submits to in the stable. This, enjoined for months, with the occasional application of a mild blister, with the best of food, to enable nature to rectify man's abuse, will do more good, cost no more money, and occupy no more time than the devilries usually adopted, and very often adopted without success. As an additional motive on the side of humanity, it may be stated that the horse suffers much more when disease is located in the hind than when it is exhibited upon the fore leg. The ravages which, in the first case, would endanger the life, in the last would be borne with comparative tranquillity. The posterior parts of the animal seem to be endowed with exquisite sensibility; yet, in spite of this, the so-called cure for spavin, and the boasted treatment for ages, only consists in torturing the hocks of the animal. While inflammation exists, apply poultices, and well rub the part with a mixture of belladonna and of opium--one ounce of each drug rubbed down with one ounce of water. Or place opium and camphor on the poultices; or rub the enlargement with equal parts of chloroform and camphorated oil. The pain having subsided and the heat being banished, apply, with friction, some of the following ointment. It may reduce the disease by provoking absorption; at all events, it will check all further growth by rendering further deposit almost an impossibility. Iodide of lead One ounce. Simple ointment Eight ounces. Mix. SPLINT.